This 630-page compendium is a must have book for anyone who is interested in complimentary and alternative medicine. The reference section contains over 3,000 citations for peer-reviewed literature. Healing & Wholeness: Complementary and Alternative Therapies for Mental Health. is a useful reference text for health care professionals, libraries, schools. and home reference. Examples of the chapters are:

1. Combining Psychotherapy with Complementary and Alternative Therapies
2. Nutritional Therapy: Nutrients and Whole Foods as Medicine
3. Phytotherapy: Ancient Herbal Medicine Goes Mainstream
4. Detoxification and Fasting: Optimum Health with Natural Hygiene
5. Healing Depression with Integrative Medicine and Multidisciplinary Methods
6. Seasonal Affective Disorder: Breaking the Cycle of Depression
7. Alternative Solutions for Postpartum Depression and Postnatal Recovery
8. Bipolar Disorder: Managing Mood Disturbances with Evidence-Based Approaches
9. Complementary and Alternative Treatments for Anxiety Disorders
10. Natural Remedies for Insomnia and Sleep Disorders
11. Scientifically Based Alternatives for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
12. Biologically Based Therapies and Mind-Body Interventions for Autism
13. Schizophrenia: Complementary Therapies for Optimal Wellness
14. Holistic Interventions for Eating Disorders and Food Addiction
15. Integrative Treatment of Substance-Related Disorders
16. Nicotine Addiction: Alternative Strategies for Smoking Cessation
17. Natural Methods for Chronic Fatigue and Trouble with Energy
18. Complementary and Alternative Practices for Stress Management
19. Cognitive Decline and Dementia: Preventing Neurodegeneration
20. Alzheimer’s Disease: Prevention and Treatment Protocols
21. A Comprehensive Approach to Parkinson's Disease
22. Happiness and Mental Health: Creating Positive Outcomes

If you would like information on ordering Healing & Wholeness: Complementary and Alternative Therapies for Mental Health, click here to go to Amazon.com. To read excerpts from the book, visit the book's website at www.HealingandWholeness.org.

Despite the availability of a wide range of antidepressant drugs, nearly 30% of all depressed patients fail to respond to antidepressant medication of any kind. Additionally, a number of peer-reviewed stuides have concluded that antidepressants are only more effective that sugar pills with the severest forms of depression. Based on this evidence, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, represent a viable option for patients that are not be helped by antidepressants.

Historically, traditional Western medicine has approached healing in either just the body or just the mind. It also tends to view the source of a problem as external, in a classic "disease" or "disorder" model. For centuries, Eastern medicine has taken a different perspective, viewing the mind and body as unified, with energy fields both inside and around the body seen as part of the total health system, and approaching healing as an internal process.

In recent years, many kinds of Eastern medicine have made their way into Western culture. Additionally, other non-traditional approaches have become useful in addressing what may be considered both physical and mental health problems. Many of these methods are being integrated into traditional mental health as their safety, effectiveness, and scientific validity are recognized as evidenced-based.

My upcoming book Fasting: An Exceptional Human Experience is about the long and fascinating history of fasting. While the origins of fasting as a religious and spiritual practice are considered obscure, it has occurred in every major religion and has been used as a method of transformation and healing since the beginning of recorded history.

The power of fasting is evident in its use in religion, politics, and medicine. Entire religions have evolved from one man's fast, empires toppled, and wars halted. For historic examples, we need look no further than Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, and Gandhi.

Just as with other time-honored spiritual practices, fasting addresses many of the principal concerns of transpersonal psychology. The primary way it accomplishes this is by initiating transformative change through peak experiences.

Examples of the chapters in Fasting: An Exceptional Human Experience are:

1. Definitions of Fasting in History
2. Fasting as a Relio-Spiritual Practice
3. The Physiology of Fasting
4. Political Fasting and Hunger Striking
5. Therapeutic Fasting: Empirical Research in Medicine
6. Fasting as a Cure for Mental Illness
7. Fasting and Transpersonal Psychology

If you have your own story about the use of fasting or other complementary and alternative therapies as a treatment for emotional healing, I would love to hear from you. Please call me at (408) 315-0645 or contact me online. To order my books, click here.